Bridge en Francais

On December 27^th we have visitors for our evening bridge game.  It is our long-time friends,   Fred and Margaret Lerner.  Fred who is finally more or less retiring from his job in a downtown law firm is spending the winter in France.  Margaret decided that the climate in the south of France would be “Goldilocks” – not too cold and not too hot.  And to change things in their lives even more they sold their house and bought a nearby apartment  in the course of a single weekend.  They definitely needed a bridge break. 

Playing with me is my sister Sandy.  Sandy is my youngest sister.  She has four children, two boys and then two girls.  I like a large family but obviously not as much as Sandy. 

We agreed to do all our bidding in French so that the Lerners could practice their language skills. 

The Lerners were soon given a chance to demonstrate their bidding ability along with their language skills.  Fred held:

 

 

 

And heard Marget open un coeur.  He bid un pique and Margaret jumped shifted in carreaux.  Fred had heard enough.  Fred invoked their favorite convention, Blackwood (yes with a void) bidding quatre sans  atout.  Margaret bid cinq coeurs showing two aces and Fred bid six piques.

 

If you are interested in the names of suits and court cards in different languages have a look here. http://www.math.bas.bg/~iad/tyalie/damapik.html

 

Here is the whole auction with our side silent (except for some gossip whispered between the Lerner’s bids).

 

 The ♣ 10 was led and Margaret tabled her hand:

 

 

 

Fred won the ♣ 10  with the ♣ A.  Fred cashed two top couers to discard his ♣ Q and then ruffed the ♣ 5 back to hand.  It was now a simple matter of drawing trump and conceding the ♦ A.  One of dummy’s high coeur would provide a discard for his third carreau, if needed.

 

 

 

We all say; “Tres tres bon”

And then I say “Voulez-vous que certains vins?” which I hoped meant “let’s drink”.

 

It isn’t all that easy to get to the right spot on a hand like this.  With spades as trump it was relatively safe to bid Blackwood without agreeing a suit since if Margaret was confused he could always bid spades over any bid should made.  And since they played REGULAR Blackwood, not keycard it wasn’t all that important to clarify what the trump suit was.  He knew that the response would show her aces.

Sometimes simpler is best.  Not that I am a fan of Regular Blackwood, but it does have its victories.

Over some Calvados, we talk about how you could get to six coeurs using Keycard Blackwood. 

One way is to just bid it.  It seems unlikely that partner who has no high cards in spades and is missing the ♥ K could have enough high cards without at least two aces although I can come up with some hands that match the bidding without them. 

Any kind of Blackwood is a gamble since you could be off two quick club tricks on hands where partner has solid hearts and solid diamonds and nothing in clubs.  But then again la vie est un pari.

We all had a temps bon, ce soir ; The four of us: three French-speaking hens and a poulet male.